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"And if we find the cure, then what?" Hunter asks "Everyone flies away to the Otherlands There’s been tooaway"

Anna comes a little closer so that Hunter can see her "There has," she agrees

Then tears come to his eyes and he puts his head down and weeps "I’m sorry," he says

"I know," she tells hio to Xander

"You left Ky alone in the infirmary," Xander says "Are you sure that’s safe?"

"There are ," I say "And Eli won’t leave Ky’s side"

"So you trust Eli?" Xander asks "The way you trusted Hunter?" There’s an uncharacteristic edge to Xander’s voice

"I’ll go back soon," I say "But I had to see you I’ure out what the cure could be Do you have any idea what Oker was looking for?"

"No," Xander says "He wouldn’t tell me But I think it was a plant He took the saathered the bulbs"

"When did he change his mind about the cure?" I ask "When did he decide that the ca the vote," Xander says "Soe his mind"

"And you don’t knohat it is"

"I think it was so you said," Xander tellsso, and said it had to do with the flowers"

I shake my head How could that have helped Oker? I reach into my pocket to make sure that I still have the paper from my mother It’s there, and so are the ers will still let me vote

"It’s lonely," Xander says

"What is?" I ask him Does he one?

"Death," Xander says "Even if so all alone"

"It is lonely," I say

"Everything is," Xander says "I’m lonely with you sometimes I didn’t think it could ever be that way"

I don’t knohat to say We stand there looking at each other, sorrowful, seeking "I’m sorry," I say finally, but he shakes his head I’ve missed the point somehohatever it was he wanted to say, I did not listen the way he had hoped

The light coray Ky’s face looks very still Very gone The bag drips neatly into his veins He and Xander are both trapped I have to find a way to free them

And I don’t kno

I look at the lists again I’ve gone over the Oker’s caht, and that ere all wrong The sorters, the phar

I’m so tired

Once, I wanted to watch the floods coe and see it happen, on ground that was safe but shaking I’d like to hear the trees snap away and see the water coht, but only from a place where it couldn’t reach ht relief to stand on the canyon floor and see the wall of water co down, and to know this is it, I aht, you would be sed, and whole

As evening falls, Anna comes to sit besideat Ky "I never thought that Hunter--"

"I know," I say "Neither did I"

"The vote will be tomorrow," she tells me For the first time, Anna sounds old

"What will they do?" I ask

"Xander will likely be exiled," she says "He could also be found innocent, but I don’t think that will happen The people are angry They don’t believe Oker told Xander to destroy the cure"

"Xander’s from the Provinces," I say "How is he supposed to survive in exile?" Xander’s smart, but he’s never lived out in the wild before, and he will have nothing when they send him away I had Indie

"I don’t think," Anna says, "that he is supposed to survive"

If Xander is exiled, ill I do? I’d go with him, but I can’t leave Ky And we need Xander for the cure Even if I do find the right plant, I don’t kno to ive it to Ky If this is to work, it will take all three of us Ky, Xander, me

"And Hunter?" I ask Anna, very softly

"The best we can hope for Hunter," she says, "is exile" Though I know she has other children who ca, her voice sounds as sad as if Hunter were her own child, the very last of her blood

And then she handsA piece of paper, real paper, the kind she must have carried with her all the way fro It smells like the canyons, here in the mountains, and it makes me ache a little and wonder how Anna could stand to leave her home